xx, 292 pages : 24 cm

The fires of the holocaust that consumed American Indians blazed in the fevers of newly encountered diseases, the flash of settlers' and soldiers' guns, the ravages of 'firewater', and the scorched-earth policies of the white invaders. Russell Thornton describes how the holocaust had as its causes disease, warfare and genocide, removal and relocation, and destruction of aboriginal ways of life. This demographic overview of North American Indian history describes in detail the mass death that, even today, white Americans tend to dismiss as an unfortunate concomitant of Manifest Destiny. They wish to forget that, as Euro-Americans invaded North America and prospered in the "New World," the numbers of native peoples declined sharply; entire tribes, often in the space of a few years, were "wiped from the face of the earth." Until recently most scholars seemed reluctant to speculate about North American Indian populations in 1492. Here, Thornton discusses in detail how many Indians there were, where they had come from, and how modern scholarship in many disciplines may enable us to make more accurate estimates of aboriginal populations

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-281) and index

Arrivals in the Western Hemisphere -- American Indian population in 1492 -- Overview of decline: 1492 to 1890-1900 -- Three hundred years of decline: 1500 to 1800 -- Decline to nadir: 1800 to 1900 -- The great ghost dances -- American Indian population recovery: 1900 to today -- Population recovery and the definition and enumeration of American Indians -- Urbanization of American Indians -- Appendix: The Native American population history of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland

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